In the contemplation of beauty we are raised above ourselves, the passions are silenced and we are happy in the recognition of a good that we do not seek to possess.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world.

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer; there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.

Memory itself is an internal rumour.

History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.

Eternal vigilance is the price of knowledge.

There is no dunce like a mature dunce.

The muffled syllables that Nature speaks Fill us with deeper longing for her word; She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks, She makes a sweeter music than is heard.

Wisdom comes from disillusionment.

Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of the good.

The same battle in the clouds will be known to the deaf only as lightning and to the blind only as thunder.

He thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.

Men have feverishly conceived a heaven only to find it insipid, and a hell to find it ridiculous.

Words are weapons, and it is dangerous . . . to borrow them from the arsenal of the enemy.

Each religion necessarily contradicts every other religion, and probably contradicts itself. Religions, like languages, are necessary rivals. What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.

Never have I enjoyed youth so thoroughly as I have in my old age. In writing Dialogues in Limbo, The Last Puritan, and now all these descriptions of the friends of my youth and the young friends of my middle age, I have drunk the pleasure of life more pure, more joyful than it ever was when mingled with all the hidden anxieties and little annoyances of actual living. Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure.

The fly that prefers sweetness to a long life may drown in honey.